


A Public Affair

by IsolaVirtuosa



Category: Naruto
Genre: Cheating, M/M, No Really Cheating is Terrible, fathers and daughters, fathers and sons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 13:26:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14833124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsolaVirtuosa/pseuds/IsolaVirtuosa
Summary: Cheating has consequences.





	1. Boruto

**Author's Note:**

> Boruto and Sarada are about 20 in this part.

            “Something weird is going on with our dads,” I informed Sarada.

            She looked up from the scroll she was reading, eyes narrowed.  “What do you mean?”

            “I mean that they’re always… whispering… and having secret meetings… and disappearing at inconvenient times,” I said, trying to put it into words.

            “You think they’re investigating some new threat?” Sarada asked, pushing her glasses up her nose as her eyes gleamed with interest.

            “Maybe,” I said with a shrug.  “You haven’t noticed anything… strange?”

            “Not particularly.”

            “Oh.”

            “Just spit it out already,” Sarada said, giving me a funny look.

            “It’s nothing.”

            “It’s obviously something.”

            “No, but I mean… if you haven’t noticed anything…”

            “Boruto.”

            “I… I don’t know.  Don’t they seem… weirdly… happy?”

            “‘Happy’?” Sarada repeated.

            “Happy,” I reaffirmed.

            “My dad doesn’t ever… wait.  Now that you mention it…”

            I watched as Sarada leaned back in her seat, the gears in her head clearly whirring away.

            “He’s been… really… nice?” she said slowly.

            “Yes!” I said, glad that someone finally understood me.  “We were training the other day, and at the end of our session he told me that I did a good job!”

            “Weird,” Sarada said, stroking her chin.  “I had dinner with my parents last week, and Papa was all, ‘it’s nice to have you here.’”

            “And you didn’t question it?!” I demanded.

            Sarada gave me a sour look.  “At the time, no, I was just… happy to hear it…”

            “My dad has been coming home on time lately,” I put in.  “His real body, I mean, not even a shadow clone.  He’s taken me training _twice_ this week.”

            Sarada leaned forward over the coffee table.  “They’re up to something.”

            “I have a clone following my dad right now,” I said, getting fired up.  I’d tried to talk to my mom and Hima about my dad’s weird behavior, and they’d both dismissed me.  I should have known to go to Sarada first.  She was the only one who understood.  “You wanna go check it out?”

            “Hell yes!” she declared, standing abruptly.

            “Let’s go!” Mitsuki said, popping up out of the floor.

            I jumped back with a shriek.

            “How many times have I told you to use the damn door?!” Sarada yelled, pounding her fist down on Mitsuki’s head.

            “Twenty-seven times this month,” Mitsuki said, rubbing his head.

            “Take the hint!” Sarada raged.

            “Team Konohamaru, reunited,” I muttered, going to the door.

            We started moving through town, towards the gates.  My clone was in the outskirts of the woods.  When we got closer, I dispelled it.

            Information came pouring into my mind.  My dad and Sasuke-sensei had left Hokage Tower that morning and headed straight out of Konoha.  My clone hadn’t been able to get close enough to hear the conversation.  They’d gone at a high speed through the trees, finally stopping at an abandoned cabin that had once served as a checkpoint before the Konoha border.

            The clone hadn’t been able to get close enough to see or hear anything, and had simply waited at a distance to see if they left.

            They hadn’t.

            “What should we do?” Mitsuki asked as we all crouched down in the underbrush, observing the cabin from a distance.

            “We need to get closer,” Sarada said, her stare burning holes in the cabin.

            “We can’t possibly without being noticed,” Mitsuki reasoned.

            “Dammit,” Sarada muttered.

            “Why are we spying on your dads, anyway?”

            “You mean that you came with us and you didn’t even know why?!”

            “They’re coming out,” I whispered.

            We all stilled and watched as my dad and Sasuke-sensei came out of the cabin and disappeared back towards Konoha.

            “Let’s investigate,” Sarada said, leading the way to the cabin.

            There wasn’t much to investigate.  It was one room, with a desk and some chairs.

            “Maybe we can bug it,” I said, watching as Sarada went over every boring inch of the place.

            “You think they’ll come back?” Sarada asked.

            “They came here last week, too,” I said.

            “You’ve been following them that long?” Sarada said, giving me a strange look.

            “It’s like the ultimate ninja test,” I said, grinning at her to sell the white lie.  I knew what Sarada thought was going on, and she was probably right.  I just thought there was more to it.

            “Do you think I’m in the running?” she asked quietly, as if reading my mind.

            “They’ll say you’re too young,” I said.

            “Who in this village would make a better hokage?!” she said, passion flaring in her red eyes.

           “Are you really ready to give up your entire life for Konoha?” Mitsuki asked, suddenly appearing between us.

            “Yes,” Sarada said, meeting his gaze seriously.

            I frowned.  We’d had this conversation a million times, but Sarada never seemed to listen.  Being the hokage was hard.  It took everything from you.  We were still young, and we had so much life ahead of us.  My dad had completely changed after his inauguration, pretty much disappearing from our everyday lives.  I understood him and respected him, but I wanted all those years we’d lost back.

            It’s why I couldn’t be serious with her.  If we started a family, and then she abandoned us for the village…

            “I think you’d make a better Ninth,” Mitsuki said.

            “Or Tenth…” I suggested.

            Sarada frowned at us, but she wasn’t angry.  If she was angry, we would have physically known it.

            “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” I said, shifting away from the wall and towards the door.

            “I know a good spying jutsu,” Mitsuki put in.

            “Oh?” Sarada asked.

            I had the feeling that this wasn’t a good idea, but I wasn’t quite sure why.  There was something really obvious right in front of my face, but I couldn’t put it into words.

            Maybe I didn’t want to put it into words.

            Sarada and Mitsuki dragged me to Sarada’s parents’ house on our next day off.

            We sat in the living room, drinking tea with her mother, all the while Sarada and Mitsuki plotted how to hide the spying jutsu trap on Sasuke-sensei.

            “That was a waste of time,” I muttered as we left.  “Well, besides Auntie Sakura’s cookies, obviously.”

            “We were just going at it wrong,” Sarada said.  “My dad would notice a jutsu, no matter how cleverly we hid it.”

            “You’re saying the Seventh wouldn’t?” Mitsuki asked, giving her a funny look.  Everyone knew that Sarada pretty much worshipped my dad.

            “We manipulate his weakness!” Sarada declared.

            We found ourselves sitting at my parents’ next, drinking yet more tea.

            “What have you three been up to today?” my mother asked, smiling pleasantly.

            “Just brushing up our skills as a team,” Sarada answered cheerfully.

            I nodded enthusiastically.  I was much more into the plan now that we were trying to outsmart _my_ dad.

            My mom smiled that sad kind of nostalgic smile that she got sometimes.

            My smile faltered.

            “Oh, that reminds me,” Sarada said, pulling out her wallet and fishing something out.  “I got this Ichiraku coupon, and I thought the Seventh might get better use out of it.”

            “That’s so thoughtful of you, Sarada-chan,” my mom said.

            “Why’s it look like it’s moving?” I asked, feigning surprise at the dancing ramen moving all over the coupon.

            “It’s a special jutsu,” Sarada said matter-of-factly.

            “Oh,” I said, nodding my head like that was so impressive and interesting.

            As if on cue, the front door opened, and my dad called out, “I’m home!”

            “In here, dear,” my mom called to him.

            Sarada flashed me a look.

            ‘See,’ I mouthed to her.  It wasn’t even dinner time, and my dad was already home.

            Sarada mouthed something back, pushing her glasses up her nose.

            “Huh?” I said.

            “Is something wrong, Boruto?” my mom asked.

            Sarada stomped on my toe.

            “Uh, noooooope.”

            “Hey, son,” my dad said, coming in and giving me a fist bump.  “Keeping your mom company?”

            “Yeah, just thought we’d stop by,” I said, grinning at him.

            Sarada rolled her eyes, which meant I wasn’t being very convincing.

            It didn’t matter.

            “Sarada, Mitsuki, great to see you,” my dad said, and his smile was dazzling.

            My suspicions were going off the charts.

            “Sarada was just saying she had something for you,” my mom said as Dad drew closer, pressing an affectionate touch to her shoulder.

            “For me?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.

            “Oh, uh, it’s just a coupon for Ichiraku,” Sarada said, ducking her head bashfully.

            “For me?” he repeated, but this time his eyes were sparkling like a schoolgirl’s.

            “I mean, it’s just a coupon,” Sarada said, blushing as she held out said coupon.

            I had forgotten how thick she could lay it on.  I filed it away for future reference.

            “Thanks so much,” my dad said, taking it from her.  “Oh my god, dancing ramen, so cool!”

            “Dad, you’re embarrassing,” I muttered.

            My dad stuck his tongue out at me, grinning impishly.

            Everyone in the room stared at him.

            My dad just cackled, bouncing away with his ramen coupon.

            “This tea is excellent,” Mitsuki commented.

            Sarada and I gave him a funny look.

            My mom got that sad, nostalgic expression on her face again.

            “Well, we should be going,” I said, feeling uncomfortable.

            “Thanks for stopping by,” my mom said, patting me on the shoulder before I went.

            “I don’t get it,” Sarada murmured as we walked back towards her apartment.  “Is he really that happy to be quitting his job?”

            I didn’t answer her.

            We all met in Sarada’s living room the next morning.

            Mitsuki held up a piece of paper the same size as the Ichiraku coupon, covered in seals.  If one put their ear to it, they could hear whatever was audible around the coupon we’d given my dad.  It all seemed simple enough, until we realized that the paper was so small, only one of us could listen at a time.

            Also, my dad was really boring.  He spent most of his day signing papers in his office.

            Mitsuki and I lost interest after an hour, and started playing video games.

            Sarada remained diligent, holding the paper close to her ear.

            “Shit!” she finally yelled several hours later.

            “What?” I asked, poking at the Chinese takeout we’d gotten with my chopsticks.

            “They knew the whole damn time!” she cried, frustrated.

            “Damn, and I thought we were clever in hiding the jutsu behind another jutsu,” Mitsuki said.  “But as expected of the Seventh.”

            “I can’t believe I wasted this entire day,” Sarada groaned.  “Oh my god, they’re at Ichiraku’s now, being all amused.”

            “Who?” I asked.

            “Our dads.”

            I quickly formed seals and popped a clone into existence.  It ran out of the apartment.

            “What’s up?” Mitsuki asked, setting his empty plate down.

            “It’s Thursday night,” I said.

            “Okay…” Mitsuki said.

            “My dad’s been coming home late on Thursdays,” Sarada said, eyes meeting mine.  “Classified hokage business, or so he says.”

            “Well, my clone’s on them, so why don’t you eat something?” I said, pushing Sarada’s untouched food towards her.

            Sarada nodded, taking it.  “Sorry,” she said quietly.

            “What for?” Mitsuki asked.

            “For being weird about this.”

            “I’m the one who started it,” I said with a shrug.

            “You did, didn’t you?” she said, eyeing me suspiciously.

            “Anyway, it’s kind of fun,” I continued, before Sarada could decide she wanted to hit me.

            “It is,” Sarada agreed.  “But I have a mission from tomorrow, so…”

            “The time limit is tonight, then,” Mitsuki said, forming seals.

            Our final plan went into action.

            We were outside the cabin again, huddle together in the dark.  One of Mitsuki’s arms stretch out towards the cabin, a spying seal clutched in his hand.

            We watched his arm retract, the seal now gone.  He pulled out the listening seal.

            I held up the sound amplifier from my stereo system, and the soft buzz of noise from the seal began to reach all of our ears.

            “…lame, Sasuke,” came my dad’s familiar voice.

            “I’m saying that I sensed something,” Uncle Sasuke said, sounding irritated.

            My dad groaned.  “You’re such a worrier.  Come on, don’t stop.”

            Uncle Sasuke growled at him.

            “Do you want me to secure the perimeter?” my dad asked, a laugh in his voice.

            “I’m leaving.”

            “Nooooo!” my dad whined.

            Sarada looked puzzled.  She was under the misguided impression that my dad was cool.

            “We’re done here.”

            “We still have to talk about Konohamaru!” my dad interjected, sounding desperate.

            “I already told you no,” Sasuke said evenly.  “He’s not good enough to be Hokage.”

            “You’ve said that about every damn person I’ve suggested!”

            Now we were all intrigued.  This was why we were here.  Well, it was why Sarada was here, anyway.

            “Well, then try suggesting someone worthwhile.”

            “You’re just stuck on the idea of an Uchiha Hokage.”

            Sarada grasped her hands together, chewing on her bottom lip.

            “And what’s wrong with there finally being a damn Uchiha Hokage?”

            “Nothing, you know I want that eventually.”

            “Eventually.”

            “Sarada’s too young.  She’s not ready.”

            “You just want to turn her into a breeder for your boy.”

            Sarada and I both turned red, looking away from each other.

            “Who talks like that?!” my dad cried, exasperated.  “But what’s wrong with wanting her to wait and start a family?”

            “Who says she wants to start a family?”

            “All girls want to start families!”

            “You are the most misogynistic dumbfuck I have ever met.”

            “What did you say, asshole?!”

            The three of us exchanged looks.

            “Are they actually… fighting?” Sarada asked.

            “I think so…” I said.

            Our dads didn’t fight.  They called each other horrible names all the time, but they did it affectionately.  Even when they seemed to have different opinions, they always presented a united front.

            Our dads didn’t fight, but here they were yelling at each other like a couple of kids.

            “Bastard!”

            “Moron!”

            “Shit stain!”

            “Waste-of-space!”

            “Ow!  Fucker, you bit me!”

            “I know,” Uncle Sasuke said, sounding smug.

            Mitsuki looked amused, while Sarada looked incredulous.

            “Look, are you just gonna leave me hanging here, or…?” my dad asked, sounding frustrated.

            “I thought you wanted to talk about Hokage candidates?” Uncle Sasuke teased.

            “Dammit, Sasukeeeee,” my dad gasped out.  “Shit, warn me before you… mm.  Yeah, okay, that’s nice…”

            Sarada looked puzzled.

            “Fuck,” I said.

            “What?” she asked, confused eyes meeting mine.

            “I knew it,” I muttered, shaking my head.

            “What’s going on?” Sarada demanded, looking between me and a bemused Mitsuki.

            I reached over, grabbing my amplifier and pulling it away from the tag.  The wet sounds stopped echoing around us.

            Sarada grabbed the paper, pressing it to her ear.

            “Sarada, no!” I said, reaching for it.

            Sarada avoided me, eyes squinted in concentration as she listened to what was going on in the cabin.  “Why are you both acting like you know what’s going on?”

            “It’s pretty simple birds and bees stuff,” Mitsuki said with a shrug.  “My father-”

            “Please never finish that sentence in my presence,” I said, waving my hands around frantically.

            “But I was just going to say that-”

            “I don’t want to hear it!”

            “Oh my god,” Sarada said.

            We both turned to her.

            She had gone completely pale.

            “Sarada, it’s a completely natural thing between consenting adults,” Mitsuki reasoned.

          I punched him in the head for Sarada, because she didn’t seem up to it.  “Not when they’re married, doofus.”

            “No, married people also engage in-”

            “Just stop talking!” I snapped.  I was worried about Sarada.  For all her smarts, she somehow hadn’t seen it.  Her dad staying in the village, both of our dads being so unnaturally happy and nice, disappearing into the woods together every Thursday night…

            “How dare he,” Sarada finally whispered.  Her sharingan roared to life.

            “Sarada…” I ventured.

            “How dare he!” she raged, taking off in the direction of the cabin.

            “Sarada!” I cried, taking off after her.

            Mitsuki stretched out his arm, touching her shoulder, but she threw him off and kept going.

            “What is she planning on doing, bust in on them in the cabin?” I muttered.  “Because that sounds like it could be very traumatic.”

            “I think it would be informative,” Mitsuki said as he moved at my side.

            “Of course you would,” I said with a sigh.  “Sarada!  Come on, wait up!”

            Sarada ignored me.

            The cabin’s glowing lights became visible ahead of us.

            “Is she really just gonna throw the door open and be all, ‘Seventh, you filthy homewrecker!’?” I asked, watching Sarada speeding ahead of us.

            “I think it will be more, ‘How dare you do this to Mom, I’ll never forgive you, Papa!’” Mitsuki suggested.

            “Sarada!  Don’t barge in on something you’ll regret seeing for the rest of your life!” I called.  “Seriously, with your sharingan going, it’s gonna be literally burned into your retinas!  Burned into your retinas!  On an endless loop!  No one needs to see that!”

            Sarada screeched to a halt in front of the cabin.  “Oh god…” she whispered.

            I rested my arm around her shoulder.  “Let’s go back to my place?”

            Sarada was nodding as the door to the cabin opened.

            “What are you three doing here?” my dad asked, looking puzzled.  His eyes were yellow.

            Sasuke was behind him, his sword drawn.

            “We were just leaving!” I said, tugging on Sarada’s arm and dragging her along with me.

            We all flew out of the forest, only pausing at the gate and again at my front door.

            “Well, that was interesting,” Mitsuki said, finally breaking up the silence.

            “Shut up, Mitsuki,” Sarada said, but it was half-hearted.  She was trying to maintain her composure, but I could tell she was hurting.

            “Look, it’s not such a big deal-” I tried to reason with her.

            “Are you fucking kidding me?!” Sarada yelled, back in rage mode.  “That cheating bastard!  My mom is always alone, she’s always fucking alone, waiting for him, and he’s off sucking the hokage’s dick!”

            “Okay, when you put it that way-”

            “And why are you so unaffected?!  Why did it seem like you already knew?  Did you already know?!” she demanded, yanking me forward by the collar of my shirt.

            “I wasn’t sure,” I said, holding my hands up in protest.  “But I mean, you gotta be blind to not know that your dad’s in love with mine…”

            Mitsuki nodded in agreement.

            “I guess I’m blind then,” Sarada said, throwing me away from her and stalking out the door.

            “Hey, wait!” I called, trying to chase after her.

            “Give her some time,” Mitsuki said, catching my arm.  “To be honest, I’m surprised you’re taking it so well.”

            I shrugged.  “I’m not… happy about it.  But I get it.”

            “You get it?” Mitsuki questioned me.

            I shrugged.  “My dad… he gave up everything to take care of the village.  He… I don’t know.  It’s hard to explain.”

            Mitsuki studied my face intently as I talked.  “You’ve grown up a lot,” he finally said.

            “You think so?” I asked, rubbing my nose.  “I still feel like a stupid kid.”

            Mitsuki slugged me in the arm as he left.

            Despite how cool I claimed to be with the whole thing, I had trouble sleeping that night.  My mind was racing as I lay in my bed, and I wasn’t all that surprised when Sasuke-sensei was suddenly looming over me.

            “Hi,” I said, sitting up and rubbing my eyes.

            “What did you see?”

            “Always straight to the point,” I muttered.  “We didn’t see anything.  Hear, on the other hand…”

            “What were you idiots thinking?”

            “Well, Sarada was thinking, ‘they better be making me the next hokage,’ and Mitsuki was thinking… uh, no one ever knows what he’s thinking…  Anyway, as for me, I was thinking, ‘why the hell is my dad being a good dad all of the sudden?’” I explained, swinging my legs over the side of my bed.

            “Naruto is a good man.”

            “Yeah, the greatest hokage that ever lived, blah blah, he’s still a shit dad.  Until he started diddling you, anyway.”

            “‘Diddling’?” Sasuke-sensei repeated, wrinkling his nose.  It was a weirdly cute expression on him.

            “Porking?  Boinking?  Fucking?  Fornicating?  Take your pick.”

            “What goes on between Naruto and I is none of your business.”

            “So I should pretend that you’re not having sex with my father?”

            “It’s not serious.  It’s not important.  We’re just taking care of mutual needs.”

            “Ha,” I said.  “Look, I really don’t care.  You’re both happier and more pleasant to be around, though the glare you’re aiming at me right now is kind of contradicting that sentiment.”

            Sasuke-sensei continued to death glare at me.

            “I get it, okay?  I know how much you love him.  I-”

            “I told you, it’s not serious.  We’re not involved, we’re not in a relationship, we are just exchanging mutually beneficial sexual favors.”

            “Okay, first of all, TMI,” I said, holding up my hands in protest.

            “Says the voyeur who was spying on us.”

            “Uh…” I said, trying to think of something to counter that and coming up blank.  “Anyway, second of all, don’t even try to tell me that you’re not madly in love with my dad.  I see the way you look at him.”

            “We are just fooling around.  And Naruto doesn’t know that you know, because he is a fucking idiot, so I think it’s best that it stays that way.”

            “So you came here to make sure I don’t tell my dad that I know?”

            “I didn’t come here to make you do anything.  I just wanted you to understand the situation.”

            “You’re not in love with my dad, and both of you cheating on your wives is fine because it’s not serious?”

            “That’s what Naruto thinks.”

            He tried to say it in the flat monotone that he’d been talking in since he’d arrived, but I caught the slight hitch in his voice.

            “Oh my god, can he not do anything right?” I cried, exasperated.

            Sasuke-sensei gave me a strange look.

            “I thought you two were making each other happy, when in fact my dad has yet again proved how inept he is at personal relationships.”

            “We’re not in a relationship.”

            “Just because you keep saying it, doesn’t make it true.”

            “Boruto,” he said, a threat echoing in his voice.

            “Sasuke,” I retorted.

            He frowned at me, then sighed and shook his head.  “I think it would be best for everyone if we never discussed what happened tonight ever again.”

            “Whatever, I’m not going to tell anyone.  It’s Sarada you should be worried about.”

            “I will deal with Sarada.”

            “I think he loves you, too.”

            “He doesn’t.  He loves your mother.”

            “Yeah, okay, sure.”

            “I’m glad that you understand.  Good night.”

            And then he was gone.

            I flopped back into my bed with a loud sigh.

            If I kept pushing Sarada away, would we end up like our dads?

            It was a sobering thought.

            Nothing good could ever come from denying the person that you loved.


	2. Shikamaru

            Naruto came into the office looking frazzled.  It reminded me of when we were kids, when every little thing that was going on in his head showed on his face.

            “Can we have the room?” I said, eyeing the ANBU who were standing guard.

            They both turned to Naruto, who nodded at them.

            “We’ll be outside the door.”

            Naruto flopped onto his chair and groaned.

            “What?” I asked, cutting to the chase.  I knew that I really didn’t want to hear what was about to come out of his mouth, but he needed to get it out.  The thought of him unleashing it on someone else was not a good one.

            “It’s bad,” Naruto said quietly.

            I stared at him, waiting for him to continue.

            “Ughhhh,” Naruto said, burying his face in his arms.

            “Naruto, we have a lot to do today.”

            Naruto peeked up at me.  “Can’t you clear my schedule?”

            “No.”

            “Gaaaah,” Naruto said, leaning back in his chair again.  “Shit, what am I gonna do?”

            “I can’t really advise you when you haven’t given me the details.”

            Naruto shot me a weary look, looking much more like the Seventh.

           “What happened with Sasuke?” I asked, rubbing the bridge of my nose.  I really didn’t want to know.  Okay, a small part of me wanted to know.  But it was just all so annoying to deal with, and we didn’t have time for it with the big summit coming up, and the unrest in the Land of Waves.  Then there was the impossible task of getting Konohamaru ready for his inauguration within the next year.  My plate was full, and I didn’t need more extra-marital Naruto and Sasuke drama to add to it.

            “We made love!” Naruto finally said.

            “You’ve been fucking for months.”

            “Yes, fucking.  We’ve been fucking.  But last night.  Oh my god, I can’t believe that happened.”

            “What are you trying to say?”

            “I’m saying that Sasuke and I made love.  We even kissed.  Oh my god, we kissed.  With tongue and everything.”

            “Finally,” I muttered.

            “What do you mean, ‘finally’?!” Naruto cried, flailing around.  “It was a mistake, a huge mistake, and it can’t ever happen again!”

            “Naruto, just stop,” I said, shaking my head.  “This has gone on long enough.  You need to acknowledge that you are in love with Sasuke and you are cheating on your wife.”

            “What?!” Naruto cried, flailing even harder.  “I’m not… I definitely don’t love that selfish bastard.  I love Hinata!  My wife!  An actual woman!  The love of my life!  You know that.  And we’re just…  I mean, he’s really good at giving head, and he’s always offering, so…  Well, no, it’s not what it sounds like!  I’m not using him, I mean I do stuff for him, too.  We mutually do stuff together.  It’s not love-”

            “You are in love with Sasuke, and you’re cheating on your wife.”

            “Stop saying that!  How many times do I have to explain-”

            “Naruto.”

            “I’m not cheating on Hinata, she’s my everything, and-”

            “Naruto.”

            “Sasuke is my friend, that’s all.  Well, my best friend.  But that’s all.  All that other stuff… it’s just what guys do.”

            I didn’t even have to say anything.

            “What?” Naruto said, his lower lip sticking out in a pout that I probably hadn’t seen in 20 years.

            “So how does that work, exactly?” I asked.  “I say, ‘damn, Naruto, I’m really hard and I don’t feel like bothering Temari, so can you take care of this for me?’  And you say, ‘Yeah, of course, man, that’s what friends are for.’”

            Naruto’s pout deepened into a sulk.

            “Just admit-” I started to say, when there was a knock at the door.

            “Come in!” Naruto said enthusiastically.

            I frowned at him.

            “What the hell is this crap about the Land of Waves?” Sasuke asked as he walked through the door.

            Naruto froze.

            “There’ve been a lot of rogue ninjas spotted there,” I said.  “Seems like ninja-on-civilian crime has increased in proportion.  We’re looking into why they’re gathering there.”

            “And you’re just telling me this now because…?”

            “We only got the report yesterday.”

            “When am I headed out?”

            We both turned to Naruto, who was still frozen.

            “What’s with the stupid look, dobe?  I asked you a question.”

            “Oh, uh…” Naruto trailed off.

            “Is it just me, or is he being stupider than usual?” Sasuke asked, glancing towards me.

            “Can’t argue with that,” I agreed.

            “Shikamaru, get out,” Naruto said, finally finding his voice.  “Please,” he added for good measure.

            I stared both of them down before leaving.  We had had one too many discussions about how the hokage’s desk was not an appropriate place for sexual activity.

            “You’re the only person who busts in here without knocking,” Naruto had tried protesting after the fourth time I caught them in a compromising position.

            “It won’t happen again,” Sasuke had interjected, and it hadn’t.

            But something was in the air today, and they were either heading towards a big fight or another misappropriation of the hokage’s desk.

            What had Naruto said earlier?  ‘We made love.’  ‘We even kissed.’

            I moved brusquely towards the conference room.  Documents for the upcoming summit were spread across the table.  I got to work going through them, all the while my mind was running through possible ways to deal with the Sasuke situation.

            Naruto and Sasuke were part of the most intricate game of shogi that I had ever witnessed.  The game had stretched out over the years, but Sasuke finally had Naruto in check.  The next move could decide the game, and I had to decide if I needed to intervene.

            “Shikamaruuuuuuu!”

            I glanced up from my work as one of the interns came running in.  “Yes?” I asked calmly.

            “It’s the hokage and Uchiha Sasuke, sir!”

            I sighed, putting down the folder in my hand and heading back to the office.

            Sasuke was standing on one side of the room, his single arm resting against his chest in his updated version of the ‘cross arms, ignore Naruto’ pose.

            Naruto stood on the other side of the room, an ANBU pinning him to the wall while he ranted and struggled and in general acted a damn fool.

            “Hokage- _sama_ ,” I said, leveling Naruto with A Look.

            “He started it!” Naruto yelled.  His lip was split and his eye was black.

            “You’re behaving like a child, Naruto,” Sasuke said, rolling his eyes.

            “You’re both acting like you’re twelve,” I informed them.  “You can go,” I said to the ANBU.

            “Yeah, you can go, let me at ’em,” Naruto said, his eyes glinting dangerously.

            The ANBU hesitated.

            ANBU weren’t used to a juvenile hokage who behaved like an idiot.

            “It’s fine,” I reassured her.

            “Apologies, Hokage-sama,” the ANBU said, bowing as she withdrew from him and disappeared.

            “Now where were we?” Naruto asked, cracking his knuckles.

            “Sit down and be quiet,” I said, closing the door irritably.  “Is it so much to ask for a quiet workday?  I’m not a damn babysitter.”

            “I’m the hokage, you don’t tell me what to do,” Naruto said sulkily.

            “You two are idiots,” I said, shaking my head.

            “I resent being grouped together with that moron,” Sasuke protested, eyes narrowed.

            “Then stop being ridiculous,” I said.

            Sasuke let out a puff of air to signal his exasperation.

            “Ha, you’re as stupid as me,” Naruto said, seeming very content.

            “Moron,” Sasuke muttered.

            “Wanna say that to my face?” Naruto growled, clenching his fist.

            “I just did.”

            “I do not have time for this,” I muttered.

            “Then leave,” Naruto said, making a dismissive gesture.

            “Do you two _want_ to get caught?” I spat out, finding myself losing my own temper.

            Sasuke looked at me evenly.  Of course he wanted to get caught.

            Naruto just looked confused.

            “Anyone with half a brain would be able to tell that your mouths are swollen from kissing, those bruises on Sasuke’s neck are clearly hickeys, and Naruto’s split lip is the result of being bitten, not punched.”

            “Oh,” Naruto said, scratching his nose.  “Yeah, well, things kinda got outta hand earlier.”

            “Out of hand…?” Sasuke muttered.

            “Yes, bastard, I thought that fucking on my desk was a little out of hand.”

            “Felt good, though,” Sasuke said, tilting his head to the side and staring at Naruto.

            The look in Naruto’s eyes suddenly went feral.

            “Sasuke, you need to leave,” I said, opening the door.

            Sasuke shrugged and sauntered by me out the door.  “I’ve got better things to do, anyway.”

            Naruto watched him go.  Then he turned to me, frowning.  “Why?”

            “You can’t think straight anymore when Sasuke’s around.”

            “That’s not… true…” Naruto said, tasting the lie in his own words.  He flopped onto his chair with a dramatic sigh.

            “What were you even fighting about?”

            “I told Sasuke he’s not leaving the village, and then he said that I can’t tell him what to do, so I pulled the hokage card, which made him all bitchy, so we had sex on the desk…  Sorry about that, but anyway, after that he told me he was going to the Land of Waves, and I told him I was sending someone else, and then he said that he’s not a bird in a cage, and I was like duh, who even would think that, and then he started getting mad, so I got mad, and then I don’t really know what happened, but the ANBU came in and I tried to kill Sasuke, and then you came, so that’s the story.”

            I sank down into one of the chairs in front of Naruto’s desk.  “Naruto.”

            “I know, I know,” he groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose.  “What’s wrong with me?”

            “You’re in love,” I stated flatly.

            Naruto let out a long breath from his nose, then looked up at me with a pained smile.  “I think maybe I am.”

            “Admission is the first step to recovery.”

            “I didn’t know,” he said quietly.  “I really thought we were just friends.”

            “But now you know?”

            Naruto hesitated, before nodding his head.  “Yeah.”

            I studied the sad look in his eyes.  He was calmer now, more himself.  “Then what are you going to do about it?”

            “What can I do?” he asked, sounding defeated.

            “You can leave your wife of twenty plus years, or you can send Sasuke away.”

            “Those are my choices?”

            “Those are your choices.”

            There was a knock at the door.

            “Come in,” Naruto called.

            Konohamaru came in, and the two prepared for their daily meeting.

            I went back to the conference room, ready to get back to work.  It was hard to push the hokage’s infidelity out of my mind, though.  If it came out that Naruto was sleeping with Sasuke, there was going to be a negative backlash against Naruto himself and ninjas in general.  He was our leader, and he was expected to behave in a certain way.

            I thought of Naruto as a kid, always smiling as he dragged everyone into his light.

            My stomach clenched.

            This was about what was best for Konoha.  It was my job to make sure that everything ran smoothly, and that the office of the hokage was not marred with scandal.  All those years of doing the job acceptably would be down the drain with a hokage cheating on his wife with a former traitor who was also a man.

            It was all such a pain in the ass.

            Naruto’s retirement is what started it all.

            He’d told Sasuke and I together, then taken out an old bottle of whiskey from his desk and started filling glasses.  It had been comfortable and companionable, and when one drink turned to ten, I hadn’t really thought anything of it.  We all felt strangely free, like a burden had been lifted.

            Then Sasuke got that look in his eye, that same damn look from when he was twelve years old and wanted Naruto’s attention.

            “You suck at drinking, usuratonkachi.”

            “Who do you think you’re talking to?” Naruto demanded, slamming his glass on his desk.  “I’m the hokage, bitch.  I can drink you under the table.”

            I blinked slowly, realizing that Naruto had the same damn look on his face.

            Sasuke snorted his disdain, Naruto flailed around and yelled, and then they both started pouring each other shots and downing them.

            “I’m gonna… go…” I said, taking my leave without either of them noticing.

            The next morning, I found Naruto asleep on his desk.

            “You didn’t go home last night?” I asked after shaking him awake.

            “Oh, god…” he groaned, dropping his face in his hands.  “I can never go home again.”

            “Why?” I asked, straightening up some papers on his desk.

            “I think I had sex with Sasuke.”

            I paused.  “You think?” I asked, clarifying.

            “Does oral count?”

            “Yes.”

            “Oh,” Naruto said, looking even more downcast.  “I had sex with Sasuke.”

            I should have been more surprised, but anyone with half a brain knew that Sasuke had been in love with Naruto for years.  And anyone with half a brain would have also noticed that that the way Naruto treated Sasuke was as more than a friend.

            Fortunately, most people in Konoha did not meet the half-brain requirement.

            I was already going through all of the possible contingencies when I asked, “So what are you going to do?”

            “Bury it deep and forget it ever happened?” Naruto suggested hopefully.

            “You don’t just forget about someone you have such strong feelings for.”

            “Feelings?” Naruto said, wrinkling his nose.  “Who said anything about feelings?  We were drunk.  It didn’t mean anything.”

            And that’s when I remembered the horrible truth that out of all the oblivious people in Konoha, Naruto led the pack.

            “Actually…” Naruto paused, perking up.  “It really didn’t mean anything.  Ha ha.  What was I worried about?  It’s not like I love that bastard or anything.  So it wasn’t cheating.  Oh, man, Shikamaru, I’m so glad that we had this talk.”

            That was the beginning of Naruto’s rationalization of his affair.

            I should have made more of an effort to put a stop to it, but it was oddly refreshing to have a hokage who was always smiling and laughing all of the sudden.  Naruto was visibly happier, and I couldn’t bring myself to interfere with that.

            Now here we were, with the oblivious hokage finally realizing that he was in love with his mistress, and the proverbial shit was about to hit the fan.

            I hadn’t done my job properly, and I needed to take responsibility.

            I went into Naruto’s office after everyone else had left.

            He looked up from his paperwork wearily.

            “We need to talk,” I said.

            “I’m sending Boruto to the Land of Waves.”

            I stared at him.

            “He said he wants to do what Sasuke does, so why not start him off now?”

            I stared harder at him.

            “It’ll be a good-”

            “And Sasuke?” I cut in.

            “He’ll stay here and help m-”

            “Send him to the Land of Waves.”

            “I just tol-”

            “He should go with Boruto.  If it’s a training mission, then Boruto should be with his teacher.”

            “Yeah, but-”

            “Was there a specific reason for Sasuke to stay in the village?” I asked, giving him a hard look.

            Naruto met my gaze evenly.  “I need his help in preparing Konohamaru-”

            “Send Sasuke to the Land of Waves.  There’s no reason for him to stay in Konoha.”

            “Is that your advice as my official advisor?”

            “It is.”

            Naruto looked pained.  “I see.”

            “It’s the best course of action,” I said, then took my leave.

            It was what was best for Konoha.  I just wasn’t sure it was what was best for Naruto.

            Two days later, Sasuke and Boruto set off for the Land of Waves.

            Naruto waved them both off with a smile that strained at the edges.  Then he went back to work.


	3. Hinata

            “These pickles are really good,” Naruto commented, plucking up some more with his chopsticks.

            “I’m glad you like them,” I said.  I smiled at him across the desk.

            “Everything you make is so good, I’m spoiled rotten,” he hummed, his expression content as he chewed.

            “Flatterer,” I said, shifting the rice around in my own bento before raising it to my lips.

            Naruto grinned.

            It was the same kind of easy conversation that we had every day.

            There was a knock on the door, and Shikamaru came in.  “Sorry to interrupt your lunch, but can you sign this?” he asked, holding up a document.

            “You’re the one who told me not to work during my lunch break,” Naruto said with a snort, holding out his hand.

            “Yes, and I wouldn’t bother you, but Sakura came in here ranting and raving about how we hadn’t signed off on the hospital’s medicinal herb order to Suna, and she needed it done yesterday, and blah blah blah, you get the point.”

            “Yes, yes I do,” Naruto said, scrawling his signature and handing it back to Shikamaru.

            Shikamaru left us with a slight nod of his head in my direction.

            “A hokage’s work is never done,” Naruto murmured.

            “Well, it will be pretty soon…”

            “Ha, I feel like I’ll have more work than ever after Konohamaru’s inauguration.”

            “Maybe you should put a little more trust in the man you chose as your successor,” I reprimanded him lightly.

            “You’re feeling optimistic,” he said with a soft laugh.

            “One of us has to be,” I said, trying not to make it sound sad.

            Naruto laughed again, that quiet, subdued laugh of his.

            We finished eating, and I collected his lunch box to drop off at home on my way to the training grounds.  My phone started ringing, and I paused by the desk to answer it.

            “Hey, Mom!” Boruto said cheerfully.  “Are you having lunch with Dad?”

            “Yes, we were just finishing up.”

            ‘Boruto?’ Naruto mouthed to me, and I nodded.

            “Oh, I’m glad I caught you,” Boruto said.  “Look out the window.”

            Naruto was suddenly fully alert, eyes flicking around the room.

            “Why…?” I started to say, walking over to the window.

            Boruto suddenly dropped down in front of the window.  “Boo!” he said, sticking himself to the glass.

            I shrieked, then felt stupid.  “Boruto!” I exclaimed, suddenly taken back about ten years to when my son was an annoying prankster.

            Naruto cracked up.

            “I’m glad you think it’s funny,” I said, elbowing him.

            Naruto grinned at me, and I couldn’t help but grin back.

            “Hey, anyone gonna let me in?” Boruto said, knocking on the glass.

            Naruto went and unlocked the window.

            There was a knock at the door.

            “Seventh, Uchiha Sasuke is here,” Konohamaru said, sticking his head in the door.

            Boruto bounced into the room, flicking his father in the forehead before bouncing over to me.

            “Hi, baby,” I said, wrapping him in a hug.

            “Mom…” Boruto groaned, trying to sound embarrassed.

            I squeezed him more tightly.

            He hugged me back, and I felt like a piece of me that had been missing was suddenly back in place.

            “I missed you,” I murmured.

            “I missed you, too,” he answered quietly.

            Of course the moment had to be ruined, as most moments in my life were, by Naruto and Sasuke.

            “What are you doing here, bastard?!” Naruto demanded accusingly.

            “Your son wanted to see his teacher’s inauguration,” Sasuke answered with a shrug.

            Boruto kept an arm around me as we watched the fight that was about to erupt.

            “Well you could have called!” Naruto snapped.  “Not that you ever charge your damn phone.  You could have sent one of your stupid birds, instead.  Something.”

            “Boruto wanted it to be a surprise.”

            “So you just desert your mission-”

            “The situation has been resolved, as you know,” Sasuke said, continuing to stare at the wall.  “I’ll be going now.”

            “I’m talking to you, asshole!” Naruto growled, but Sasuke was already gone.

            “Dad…” Boruto said quietly.

            Naruto looked miserable.

            “I’m sorry, should we not have…?”

            Naruto shook his vigorously, his usual stoic expression returning.  “No, no, I’m glad you’re here.  I’m sorry, I just…” he said, hesitating, then looking helpless mumbled, “Sasuke…” like that one word would explain everything.

            The sad thing was that it did.

            “I’ll let you get back to work,” I said, smiling gently at him.  “Boruto, are you tired?  Would you like to come meet my genin team?”

            “I’m fine, yeah, let’s go,” Boruto said, taking my arm and grinning at me.

            We left the office and headed for the training grounds.

            I pushed myself through the rest of the day with a smile.  I was glad to have my son back, even if I knew it was only temporary.  I was glad to have my genin team, too.  Three rosy-cheeked faces, staring up at me in admiration and awe.  I felt like a ninja again.

            I didn’t think about the guilty look on Naruto’s face as he told me that he’d sent our son away to the Land of Waves with his l- best friend.  The way he chewed on his bottom lip, promising that he would spend more time with me.  We would have lunch every day.  He would come home on time.  He would take time off so we could travel together.  This was the start of something new for us.

            “I want a genin team,” is what I’d said.

            Naruto was suddenly the attentive husband I’d always thought I wanted. I enjoyed spending time with him.  I was content with our life together.

            But what I really looked forward to every day was being with my team.

            Somehow, this wasn’t what I’d imagined for myself.  I was proud of the life I’d led up until now, proud of my two children, and proud of my husband.  But my life had always been about them and about the village.  It had never been about me.

            Maybe it was selfish, but I wanted it to be about me now.

            I just wasn’t sure what that meant.

            The last year had been like a pleasant daydream.  I’d had my team, and I’d had my husband.  But that was all over now.  I’d known it as soon as Sasuke had walked through the door.

            It was scary, realizing that your entire life was about to change.  I wondered if I could handle it, if I was strong enough.

            “Hinata-sensei!”

            I looked up in the trees to see my entire team standing together with Boruto.

            “We did it!” Ringo said happily, jumping up and down, then almost falling off the tree branch.

            Boruto caught her easily, and Ringo gave an embarrassed laugh.

            “That’s amazing!” I called, smiling up at them, the expression natural and easy.

            At least this part was easy

            Boruto decided to come stay with Naruto and I while he was in Konoha, since Himawari had been living in his apartment while he was away.  We stopped at the market on the way home and bumped into Sarada.

            “Hi,” Sarada said, her eyes flicking to her groceries.

            “Hi,” Boruto said, staring at the floor.

            I left them to it and walked around the store, having the feeling that I was going to need to feed an army that night.

            “Hey, Mom, can Sarada come to dinner tonight?” Boruto asked, catching up with me at the checkout.

            “Of course,” I said.

            Sarada was on her phone, and she pulled it away from her ear for a moment, black eyes meeting mine.  “Mom and Dad want to come, too, if that’s all right.  Mom said she’d bring dessert.”

            “That would be lovely,” I said, eyes shifting to the cashier as he began ringing me out.

            “Okay, I’ll tell them,” Sarada said, putting the phone back to her ear.

            “Mom, Hima and that guy are coming, too,” Boruto put in, fingers flying over the screen of his phone as he texted with his sister.

            “He’s not ‘that guy’, Boruto, he’s your future brother-in-law,” I reprimanded him lightly.

            “Ugh,” Boruto said, continuing to text.

            I paid the cashier, and Boruto and Sarada both helped me carry the bags home.

            I was a bit tired from working all day.  The morning had been spent cleaning the park, and the afternoon had been spent practicing chakra control.  Now I had to put on my hostess face.

            Now I had to face Uchiha Sasuke.

            They all thought that I didn’t know.  Like I didn’t notice how happy and carefree Naruto suddenly became.  Like I couldn’t see the way his eyes lit up whenever Sasuke came into the room.  Like I was an oblivious fool.

            Of course I knew.

            Now after a year of respite, here was the man himself, standing in my living room.

            I wanted to feel happy about the way he was pointedly ignoring Naruto.  But Naruto just looked so miserable because of it, and it made my heart ache.

            “Come help me in the kitchen,” I said, nudging him gently.

            “Huh?” Naruto said, looking like he was snapping out of a daydream.

            “Help me in the kitchen,” I repeated.

            He nodded and followed me.

            We quietly worked together, preparing the food.

            Meanwhile, the living room bustled with loud voices.

            The evening progressed as could be expected, with lots of eating and laughing, alcohol being poured freely to help keep the elephant in the room silent.

            I played the good hostess.

            I was polite to the man who had knocked up my daughter before properly marrying her.  I poured drinks for the man who was sleeping with my husband.  I made pleasant conversation with the woman who was going to steal my son away from me.

            It was all part of being the hokage’s wife.

            Of course, in one week Naruto would no longer be the hokage.

            “You look like you could use this,” Sakura said, coming to sit next to me and handing me a bottle of wine.

            I gave her a tired smile.

            “Cheers,” Sakura said, clinking her own bottle with mine.

            “Oi, Mom, you’re not gonna share that?” Sarada asked.

            “Nope, this is the good stuff,” Sakura said, taking a long drink from the bottle.

            “Sorry, Sarada,” I said with an apologetic smile, then took a drink from my own bottle.

            “Should I be concerned about this?” Naruto asked, looking back and forth between me and Sakura.

            “Drink your shitty beer,” Sakura said dismissively.

            “Beer is a man’s drink,” Naruto declared, picking up his can and downing it.

            Sasuke let out a loud breath that vaguely resembled a snort, if an Uchiha could deign to make such a sound.

            “You got something to say, bastard?” Naruto asked, giving Sasuke an annoyed look.

            Sasuke didn’t say anything, sipping his sake.

            “Asshole,” Naruto mumbled sourly.

            “Hey, Hima, so when’s the baby due?” Boruto finally put in when the silence had gotten too awkward.

            Himawari and I both gestured frantically at him to stop, but it was too late.  Boruto had asked the question, completely oblivious to our horror.

            “…what?” Naruto said.

            Himawari met her father’s gaze, smiling as best as she could.

            “Idiot,” Sarada muttered, smacking Boruto upside his head.

            “What did I do?” Boruto whined in protest.

            “Who wants dessert?” I asked cheerfully.

            “Ba…by?” Naruto said slowly, like he was sounding out the word for the first time.

            “This is getting good,” Sakura said, settling in more comfortably and sipping her wine.

            “Sakura-chan!” I said, elbowing her.

            “Come on, you know our two families can’t ever get together without something ridiculous happening.”

            “That’s true,” I said with a sigh, taking one of the cupcakes that Sakura offered me.

            “Himawari, are you…?” Naruto said, getting slightly better at forming sentences.

            Himawari took her fiancé’s hand, and they both kneeled properly in front of Naruto.  “Yes, Daddy, I’m going to have a baby.”

            “He didn’t know?” Boruto asked.  He scratched the back of his head, looking confused.

            “Wow, did you just figure that out?” Sarada muttered.

            “Like father, like son,” Sasuke said, shifting closer to Sakura.

            Sakura gave him a weary look, then ripped off a piece of cupcake and stuffed it in his mouth.

            Sasuke chewed thoughtfully.  “Not bad,” he finally said.

            “These are special Sasuke cupcakes, no sugar added,” Sakura said, sticking another piece in his mouth.

            Sasuke gave her a small upturn of his lips, then went back to chewing.

            It made my heart pull in a strange way.

            Sakura knew that Sasuke was gay, had known before they’d gotten married.  She had confided this to me one night after a lot of drinking.  We’d started getting close after our children were older.  We suddenly found ourselves with a lot of free time, and a lot in common.

            Sakura had entered her marriage knowing full well that Sasuke loved her, but was not in love with her.

            I wondered which was worse, never being in love at all, or falling out of love.

            “You think the idiot’s having a heart attack?” Sasuke murmured to Sakura.

            We all watched Naruto, staring at his daughter, his face red as his mouth moved but no words came out.

            “It’s probably just temporary aphasia caused by sudden brain trauma,” Sakura said easily.

            “Should I… do something?” I asked, looking at Himawari’s wavering smile and her fiancé’s terrified expression.

            “They’ll be fine, gotta let the kids grow up some time,” Sakura said.

            Sasuke handed me another cupcake.

            I took it from him, our fingers brushing.  I looked into his eyes.

            He met my stare evenly, and I looked away.

            “Let’s step outside,” Naruto finally said, drawing all of our attention back to him.

            “U-uh, Hokage-sama, s-s-s-sir?” Himawari’s poor fiancé stuttered.

            “Yeah, we need to go outside,” Naruto said, standing up and rolling his neck.

            “Naruto…” I murmured.

            “It’s fine,” he said, turning to me with a smile.  “We’re just going to settle this like men.”

            “L-l-l-like men?”

            “Daddy.”

            “Don’t worry, sweetheart, this is just something that we have to do.”

            “Daddy.”

            “Naruto.”

            “Seventh.”

            “S-s-s-sir?”

            “Sasuke,” Sakura murmured, nudging her husband.

            “What?” he asked, giving her one of his patented Uchiha Looks of Superior Annoyance.

            “Help the kid out,” Sakura said, unfazed.

            “What am I supposed to do?” Sasuke asked, acting disinterested.

            “Like you don’t have Naruto wrapped around your little finger.”

            “Do I?”

            “Sasuke.”

            “Yeah, yeah,” he said, leaning back against the wall and fixing his gaze on Naruto.  “Usuratonkachi.”

            Naruto whirled around.  Whereas before he had been completely calm, albeit a bit frightening, his eyes now took on a fevered brilliance.  “Stay out of this, jackass.”

            “Who’s the jackass, jackass?”

            Himawari pulled on her boyfriend’s arm, and they both started backing towards the door.  ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed at me.

            ‘Go,’ I mouthed back.  Naruto just needed some time to let it sink in, and I was fairly confident that he would be less homicidal in the morning.  He tended to be overprotective of Himawari, but given time, I expected him to be reasonable.  This was Naruto, after all, who thought that any problem could be solved through long and impassioned speeches.

            It was what I loved about him.

            Meanwhile, he and Sasuke were hurling insults at one another like children.

            “God, Dad, enough already, geez,” Boruto said, putting a hand on his father’s shoulder.

            Naruto tensed, turning red eyes on Boruto.

            “Are you five years old?” Boruto asked.

            “Excuse me?”

            “Because that’s what you’re acting like.”

            “I’m… not…”

            “You two go talk!” Boruto snapped, pushing Naruto towards the hallway.

            “Yeah, dad, please?” Sarada said, kneeling next to Sasuke and looking at him imploringly.

            “We don’t have anything to talk about,” he answered coldly.

            “Oh, for fuck’s sake, go talk to Naruto!” Sakura snapped.

            Sasuke looked like a chastised child as he stood up and followed Naruto into the hallway.

            “Cupcake?” I offered, holding the tray out to Boruto and Sarada.

            “I’d rather get some of that wine,” Sarada said, eyeing our bottles.

            “Only for grownups,” Sakura said.  “But help yourself to your dad’s sake, because lord knows he doesn’t need to get any drunker.”

            “Sake is for old people,” Sarada said, stealing her mother’s wine bottle.

            “We do have glasses, you know…” Boruto said.

            We all stared at him.

            “Did I miss some kind of anti-glass revolution while I was gone?”

            We all continued to stare at him.  I loved my son, but he was dense sometimes.  He didn’t realize what we all knew was about to happen.

            “I’ll take a cupcake,” Kakashi said, reaching out and taking one from the tray.

            Sarada and Boruto both jumped in surprise.

            “Were you always here?” Boruto asked, scratching the back of his head and trying to play off his embarrassment.

            Kakashi’s one visible eye curved into a crescent.

            “Who said you could eat my cupcakes, Sensei?” Sakura growled, snatching it out of his hand and chomping on it angrily.

            “Well, Hinata offered…” Kakashi said with a pout.

            “I DIDN’T SEND YOU AWAY, YOU CRUMMY BASTARD, YOU ASKED TO LEAVE!”

            All eyes flicked nervously towards the closed door to the hallway.

            I passed Kakashi another cupcake with a strained smile.

            Kakashi smiled back.

            I picked up the wine bottle and took a long drink.

            “I WAS TRYING TO DO WHAT WAS BEST FOR THE VILLAGE!”

            There was a loud crash.

            Sarada flinched.

            Boruto came and sat next to me, sliding his arm around my shoulder.

            I leaned into him, my head feeling floaty from the wine.

            “So Naruto really didn’t know that Himawari’s pregnant?” Kakashi mused.

            “You knew?” Sakura asked, raising an eyebrow.

            “Pregnant women have a certain kind of glow.”

            Sakura wrinkled her nose at him.

            “FUCK YOU, NARUTO!”

            We all started at Sasuke’s voice.

            There was some more crashing and banging.

            Naruto let out a very anguished-sounding scream, and my body moved reflexively towards him.

            Boruto’s arm pulled me back down to the floor.

            Kakashi got up instead, opening the door and closing it behind him.

            “Do you want to come stay with us?” Sakura asked quietly, reaching her hand out to rest on my knee.

            “What?” I said.  “No, no, we’re fine-”

            More yelling filled the air.

            “Mom, it’s okay to not be fine,” Boruto said.  He curled both arms around me, resting his cheek against the top of my head.

            “What are you talking about?” I asked, wriggling out of his hold.  “Why wouldn’t I be fine?  Does anyone want another cupcake?”

            “Mom…”

            “Boruto, let’s go for a walk,” Sarada said.

            “Huh?  But-”

            “Now!”

            “You’re so damn pushy,” Boruto groused, standing up.  “Mom, we’ll be outside.  If you need anything-”

            “Just come on already,” Sarada said, already at the door.

            Boruto gave me a quick smile before following Sarada outside.

            “Hinata,” Sakura said, taking my hand.

            I shook my head.

            “You know what’s happening,” she said, looking at me sadly.  “You know.”

            I shook my head more vehemently.

            “They’re never going to be just friends.”

            “Stop.”

            “We’re only hurting ourselves by pretending.”

            “No.”

            “Hinata.”

            “Everything is fine, it’s-”

            “Hinata!”

            “What do you want from me?!” I finally snapped.  “Am I supposed to say, ‘oh, well they love each other, so it’s okay’?  What about me?  What about my love?  What about the last twenty years of my life?!”

            Sakura squeezed my hand.

            “It’s not fair!” I shouted, tears running down my cheeks.

            “It isn’t,” Sakura agreed, her tears mirroring my own.

            “I hate him right now,” I whispered, feeling the anger start to drown into sorrow.  “I hate them both.”

            “I do, too.”

            I looked at Sakura’s miserable face, and it made my heart ache even more.

            “Sakura!” I sobbed, throwing my arms around her.

            Sakura’s arms wrapped around me tightly, shaking with her own sobs.

            “What are we supposed to do?” I cried into her shoulder.

            “Whatever we damned well want to,” Sakura said with a strangled laugh.  “We live.”

            “We live,” I echoed, clinging onto Sakura as my marriage fell apart.


	4. Naruto

            “What do you want, Naruto?” Sasuke asked tiredly, stepping back into his motel room.

            I caught the door before it closed and followed him inside.  “You, obviously.”

            “Fuck off.”

            “If you meant that, then you wouldn’t have let me in.”

            “Go die in a fire or something.”

            I studied how rigidly he was standing, his back to me as he looked out the window.  “Sasuke…”

            “Fuck off.”

            I sat down on his bed, ready to wait.

            “Stop coming here,” Sasuke finally said, still not looking at me.

            I waited some more.

            “Get out.”

            “Sasuke,” I said with a sigh.  I didn’t have the endurance to wait him out.  “Come here.”

            “Die.”

            “You know, one of these days I’m going to get really offended by all the horrible things you say to me.”

            “Can that day be today?”

            “Sasuke.”

            “I told you what you need to do.”

            “I’m not leaving Hinata.”

            “Then go.”

            “Why do you have to be like that?”

            “I’m not being like anything.”

            I was on my feet now, spinning him around and slamming him into the wall.

            He let me, staring into my eyes passively.

            “Sasuke!” I said, choked emotion caught in my throat.

            “Go,” he repeated.

            I tried to kiss him, and he punched me in the face.

           Hinata took in my black eye when I came home, already healing into a nasty green color.  She gave me a look, then disappeared into the bedroom for the night.

            I slept uneasily on the couch.

            Konohamaru’s inauguration had come and gone.  I was no longer the hokage.  My signature was no longer required on hundreds of documents a day.  It was weirdly liberating, even if I still needed to be around to make sure the transition went smoothly.

            Of course, my wife hated me.  My son was furious with me.  My daughter was extra furious with me.  And my… well, I’d have to say that things had never been worse with Sasuke.

            He and Sakura were getting a divorce.  He’d moved into the Konoha Motel, and was more than ready to leave the village and get back to work.

            Only, I’d sent Boruto and Sarada out instead.

            “Let the younger generation start taking care of things,” I’d reasoned.

            Sasuke did not agree.

            He also did not agree with my idea that because I was no longer the hokage, our relationship was fine how it was.

            “Divorce or nothing.”

            But I couldn’t do that to Hinata.  Even if she hated me right now, I loved her, and I didn’t want to hurt her like that.

            “You’re hurting her even more how things are now!” Sakura had screamed at me.

            I felt trapped, like there was no way out, no way to make things right.

            Maybe there wasn’t.

            “You look like you need a friend,” Himawari said, sitting next to me on the balcony.

            “I have lots of friends,” I said, looking up at the full moon.

            “Yeah, but they’re all mad at you,” she pointed out.

            I turned my gaze to her.

            “Are you still mad at me?” she asked, her own look defiant yet vulnerable.

            “No, of course not,” I said.  “I’m mad at that no-good piece of shit boy-”

            “Don’t talk about the father of my child like that,” she said flatly.

            I sighed and tried counting back from ten.  “I’m sorry.”

            “It’s okay,” she said.  “I know this was a mistake.”

            “What do you mean?” I asked, reaching out and taking her hand.  I could feel the baby’s chakra pulsing through Himawari’s body, and I wondered how I possibly didn’t notice before.

            “I’m not ready to be a mom,” she said, and I could tell it was the first time she was voicing these thoughts out loud.  “I’m… I’m still a kid…”

            “But you want this baby, right?”

            She nodded, biting her lip.  “I love her.”

            “It’s a girl?” I breathed.

            “Yeah.”

            I could feel my eyes getting misty.

            She squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back.  “You already love her, too, don’t you?”

            “How could I not?” I whispered.  “I know I’ve been acting crazy about all this, but I love you, and I love your child, okay?  My granddaughter, holy crap, I’m gonna be a grandpa…”

            Himawari gave me one of her sad smiles.  “You’re getting old, Dad.”

            “But not too old,” I said.  “I’m still going to be a young, hip grandpa.”

            “You’ve never been ‘hip’,” she said with a snort.  Then she smacked my hand away.  “Anyway, I’m glad you’re not mad at me, but I’m still mad at you.”

            I almost asked, ‘for what?’ and immediately stopped myself.

            “You still think that you’re not doing anything wrong,” she said, catching the look in my eye.

            I didn’t say anything.

            She made a disgusted noise.  “Dad, you are extra shit, do you know that?”

            “Excuse me?”  I expected that kind of disrespect from Boruto, but never Himawari.

            “You have got to be the most selfish person alive,” she said, clenching her fists.

            I sputtered at that.  “When have I ever been _selfish_?  When have I ever put myself first?!”

            “Oh, yeah, you’re just so long-suffering and self-sacrificing because everything you do is for the _village_ , and blah blah blah…” she trailed off, and when I opened my mouth to speak she started up again.  “Don’t even start.  You were never there for us when we were growing up.  Never.  You want to act like you were making this great big sacrifice for the sake of the village, but it’s what you wanted.  You wanted to be this important person who everyone loved and who everyone needed.  It made you feel good, even when you were neglecting the people who needed you the most.  And now you feel like you’ve earned the right to cheat on my mother because you sacrificed so damn much.  If anyone sacrificed anything, it was her.”

            The last part hit a little too close to home.  “I know that,” I said quietly.  “That’s why I’m not leaving her.”

            “And Uncle Sasuke?” she asked, the bitterness filling every syllable of his name.

            “I… what do you want me do?!” I cried.  “He’s my other half.  I can’t not be with him.”

            “You weren’t with him for years!  You somehow survived, so why is it different now?!”

            I was quiet for a moment.

            Himawari glared at me.

            “…because I didn’t know that I could have him.”

            “So, what?  You wish you could go back in time and just be with him from the beginning?  Then you would never have had to marry mom, and she wouldn’t be such a hindrance to your epic love story now!”  Himawari rose to her feet, her chest heaving.

            “Hima, you can’t be raising your blood pressure like this,” I said, standing up as well and resting my hand on her shoulder.  Her words were leaving countless wounds, but the baby was more important than my hurt feelings.

            “Fuck my blood pressure!” she snarled, shoving my hand away.  “And fuck you!  You are killing my mother, you are killing her!”

            I froze.

            “Don’t do that!” she yelled.  “Don’t try and play the victim!”

            I rubbed my eye with the heel of my hand and it came away wet.  “I don’t know how to make things right.”

            “You can’t,” she said, leaving.

            I felt broken.

            “Naruto.”

            I looked up as Sasuke slipped from the roof to the balcony.  “You shouldn’t be here,” I said, glancing towards the glass door, relieved to see that the curtain was pulled.

            “Oh, then I’ll just fucking leave,” he said irritably.

            “No, I didn’t mean that,” I said, wanting to grab him and hold on desperately.

            “You did, but that’s okay,” he said.  He leapt up onto the balcony’s railing.  “I came to tell you that I’m leaving tomorrow.”

            “What…?” I breathed out.

            “I talked to the _hokage_ , and everything has been arranged.”

            “Then unarrange it.”

            “I’m not staying here.  There’s no reason for me to stay here.”

            “If not me, then what about your family?!” I cried.  “There’s a million reasons for you to stay!”

            “Things were fine how they were before I came back,” he said, turning his back to me.  “I’ve already decided.”

            I closed my eyes as he leapt from the balcony, disappearing into the night.

            Maybe I was just being selfish.  Maybe it was best if Sasuke left.

            But when I thought about the last year I’d spent without him after sending him away, my chest constricted and it was too hard to breathe, I was gasping and wheezing, sweat dripping everywhere.

            I had hurt everyone that I loved, and I didn’t know how to move forward without hurting them all again.

            I thought back to how free I felt the night I told Sasuke and Shikamaru that I was retiring.  It felt like I was waking up from a dream, a long, twenty-year-long dream, and I had finally come back to reality.

            I had surprised myself when I leaned in to kiss Sasuke, rationalizing it as being caused by all the alcohol that would the next day result in the worst hangover I had ever had in my life.  And when Sasuke kissed me back, I just assumed it was because he was as drunk as I was.

            It was so funny to look back and think that there was ever a time when I wasn’t knowingly in love with Sasuke.

            I had a lot of decisions to make.


	5. Sasuke

            Everyone just assumed that I’d spent my entire life pining after Naruto.  Like I was some pathetic lovesick fool.

            I couldn’t care less about that idiot.

            Of course I respected him as a ninja, since he was one of the few people in the world I considered to be at my level.  And I respected him as a leader.  He had guided Konoha away from its blood-soaked past that had taken my family from me.  He had fought relentlessly to end barbaric clan practices.  And he had saved the world.  A lot.  With my help, obviously, but he was a sufficiently capable person when it came to world-saving.

            He had grown up into a respectable man.  A handsome man.  A very handsome man who was very good with his hands.  These were also traits of his that I admired.

            He was still an idiot, though.

            Our paths had diverged when we were eighteen years old: I left, and he stayed.

            It was in that moment that I knew that my feelings meant nothing; that I in fact did not and never had had feelings for that idiot.

            I hadn’t meant to get so drunk after hearing that Naruto was about to be the father of that woman’s child.  Sakura had thought she was comforting me, and nine months later there was Sarada.  Even Kurenai-sensei had faced the whispers and the scorn of having a baby out of wedlock.  So I did the only respectable thing and I married Sakura.

            Nothing really changed after that, except that Sakura no longer travelled with me.  She had to stay home and raise our child.  She said it was what she wanted.  It wasn’t my place to tell her otherwise.

           So I continued to travel, only returning when the idiot called, because the village would fall apart without me.  It was a fine system that worked for everyone.

            Sakura didn’t have to feel rejected by her gay husband.  Sarada didn’t need to feel disappointed by her terrible father.  And Naruto didn’t need to think about all the funny feelings he got in his tummy whenever he was around me.

            I wouldn’t have kissed Naruto if he hadn’t kissed me first.  I wasn’t that desperate.  And I actually did respect Sakura and our marriage.  I got a free pass to sleep with prostitutes, but I knew that Naruto was off the table.  Sakura seemed to have this misbegotten idea that I was in love with him.

            Our paths had diverged when we were eighteen years old, and it was a simple as that.

            Except, we kept kissing.  And then we started undressing, and we started touching.

            After that we stopped kissing, but we kept undressing and touching and mouthing and sucking, which were all fine as long as we weren’t kissing.

            Until we were kissing again, and then everything started to unravel because Naruto was saying that he was in love with me, but our paths had diverged when we were eighteen years old, and I did not and never had had feelings for that idiot.

            The story didn’t change.  I was the one who left.  He was the one who stayed.  That was how it was.

            It was early morning when I passed through the gate, the sun barely peeking over the horizon.  “Of course you’re here,” I muttered, eyes meeting Naruto’s as he leaned against a tree.  “You needed one last look?”

            He held his hand out to me.

            “What…?” I started to say, but he just sighed exasperatedly and pressed something into my hand.  My fingers closed around the cool metal.  Now I was even more confused.

            “I signed the divorce papers,” he said tersely.  “So I don’t need that anymore.”

           “Your wedding ring?” I said, squeezing it tightly in my hand.  My brain wasn’t quite running on all cylinders.

            “Yes.”

            “Oh.”

            He looked at me expectantly.

            “What am I supposed to do with it?” I asked, feeling mystified.

            “I don’t know, whatever you want!” he snapped at me.

            Naruto wasn’t a gay man who married a woman because he got her pregnant.  His marriage had meant something to him.

            “I’m sorry,” I said.

            “Thank you.”

            I held onto the ring, not knowing what to do with it.

            “Should we get going, then?” he asked, shifting his weight from one side to the other.

            “Get going?”

            His face finally broke into a smile.  “I forgot how cute you are in your early morning befuddlement.”

            I stared at him.

            “Come on,” he said, shaking his head and still smiling.  He started moving down the path away from the village.

            “Where do you think you’re going?” I asked, unmoving.

            “I dunno,” he said.  “Wherever you’re going.”

            “Are you fucking kidding me?” I growled.  “Go home.”

            “I don’t have a home, Sasuke.”

            “Don’t to be stupid.”

            “I can’t escape my nature, as you love reminding me.”

            “No.  Stop this immediately.  You don’t get to just act like everything is okay between us.”

            “I know it’s not okay.  That’s why I want to travel with you.  I want to start building a future where maybe things will be okay.”

            “That’s not how this works,” I informed him.  “I’m the one who leaves and you’re the one who stays.”

            “You’re not listening to me.”

            “I’m listening just fine.”

            “No, you’re not,” he said, finally coming back to stand in front of me.  He caught my face in both of his hands and all the air left my lungs.  “This isn’t about the past, okay?  I should have gone with you.  I get that now.  I should have gone with you.  But I didn’t.”

            “No one asked you to-”

            “This isn’t about the past,” he said, cutting me off.  “I can’t fix what happened.  And I don’t want to _fix_ it.  If I had gone with you, I wouldn’t have lived the life that I did up until now.  I wouldn’t have my children, and no matter how terrible a father I’ve been, I would never want to live in a world where they don’t exist.  This isn’t about regret.  I’ve made so many damn mistakes, but they brought me here, to this moment, and now I want to face forward instead of looking backwards.”

            He was still holding my face, my tears catching on his fingers.  “What if I don’t want you to come with me?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.

            Naruto hesitated.  “I hope that you do want me to come with you, but…”

            I swallowed.

            Doubt started to flicker in his blue eyes.

            “I was waiting for you,” I finally whispered, pushing his hands away.  I let the ring drop to the ground and quickly walked away.

            Naruto didn’t move.

            “Hurry up,” I said, my voice cracking.  I cleared my throat, trying to pull myself back together.

            “Uh, yeah,” Naruto said, jogging to catch up.  “Where are we going, anyway?”

            “To deal with unrest in the Land of Water.”

            “Is that what Konohamaru put you on?”

            “Yes.”

            “I don’t know that I would have sent Konoha’s most valuable asset to deal with such a piddly-”

            “Stop micro-managing.  You quit in case you forgot.”

            “I didn’t quit, I retired!” he protested.

            I looked at him.

            “What?” he asked.

            I shook my head and held my hand out to him.

            He took it, his smile beating on me like the sun.

            It was a start.


	6. Sarada

            I sensed them before I saw them, the familiar chakra crawling up my spine.

            “Is that-” Boruto started to say, but then we both froze as we caught sight of them.

            My dad’s henge was normal enough, just a middle-aged ninja who was maybe slightly better looking than everyone else in the near vicinity.  It was the Seventh’s form that stopped us in our tracks.

            “Look at those knockers,” Boruto marveled.

            “That’s your dad, you weird pervert,” I hissed, elbowing him sharply.

            “I know you’re right, but…”

            I rolled my eyes.

            Our dads seemed to be arguing about what to make for dinner.  The Seventh was holding up a family-size pack of ramen noodles, while my dad was pointing at the container of miso in his hand and saying something along the lines of, ‘it’s for miso _soup_ , not miso _ramen_.’  The argument concluded with the Seventh putting back the family-size pack and getting a single serving size, while my dad looked long-suffering.

            Even when they stood on opposite sides of the grocery store refrigerator having an argument, it was painfully obvious that these were two people who were deeply in love.

            It made my chest ache.

            “Let’s go over there,” Boruto said, catching the top of my arm and dragging me along after him.

            Our dads both smiled as we came over.

            “Fancy meeting you here,” the Seventh said, grinning as he patted Boruto on the shoulder.

            “Nice boobies, Dad,” Boruto replied.

            “I know, right?” he agreed, squishing them together.  “Sasuke hates them, which just once again goes to show what poor taste he has.”

            “He’s with you, after all,” Boruto said, nodding in agreement.

            The Seventh pulled a face and Boruto laughed.

            “You look well,” my dad said, nodding at me.

            “You as well.”

            Boruto and the Seventh paused in their teasing of one another to give us both weird looks.

            “So are you heading back home to see your niece?” the Seventh asked, his whole face lighting up.

            “Yeah, we finished up with our mission in Suna, so I wanted to see how Hima and the baby are doing,” Boruto explained.

            “Think you’re going to stay for a while?”

            Boruto glanced at me.  “Uh, I guess we haven’t really decided yet,” he said quickly.

            “Oh, _we_ haven’t decided?” the Seventh asked, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

            My dad looked to me as well.

            “I don’t know what the best course of action is for me if I want to be the Ninth,” I explained.  “I think I should be in Konoha, preparing, rather than travelling.”

            “You should be travelling,” the Seventh said, and Boruto and even my dad nodded in agreement.

            “But shouldn’t I be in the vill-”

            “No,” they all agreed.

            My dad and the Seventh exchanged sad smiles, and my dad lightly touched his hand before pulling away.

            “Hey, so we’re gonna go start making dinner, but if you two want to join us…?” the Seventh offered.

            I knew Boruto wanted to accept, but instead he said, “We actually have plans tonight, but maybe if we see you again before we reach Konoha?”

            The Seventh gave him a hug on parting, then pulled back with an astonished, “Did you just…?!”

            Boruto shrugged and turned to my dad, shaking hands with him.

            The Seventh covered his chest with his arms and looked scandalized.

            Boruto was fine with both of our dads.

            I wished I could be like that.  “Goodbye,” I said, because that was all I could manage.

            My dad looked disappointed.  “Good seeing you,” he said, then abruptly headed towards the checkout with his basket.

            “This is where we’re staying,” the Seventh said, scribbling something on a scrap of paper and handing it to Boruto.

            Boruto nodded and waved as his dad made a beeline for my dad.  “Man, I can’t believe my dad has to go around like that.”

            “Has to?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

            “Well, can you imagine all the shit they’d get for being two guys acting like that?” he said, shaking his head.  “We live in such a backwards world.”

            Boruto was very supportive of our gay dads.

            I didn’t know how to be.

            Ever since the night when we first found out about the affair and my dad had told me straightforwardly, “I’m gay”, I had struggled to figure out what our relationship was supposed to be.

            “You’re married to Mom,” I’d protested.

            “She knows.”

            “Why would she marry you if she knows that you’re gay?”

            “Because she was pregnant with you.”

            It was like I was a shackle on my parents, binding them together and keeping them from any chance at real happiness.  Sometimes it was easier to not be around them so I didn’t have to think about how I’d ruined their lives.

            “You can’t keep lying to Mom,” I’d tried to reason with him.

            “I know,” he’d said quietly.  “Please, just… I need more time.”

            I was angry.  “More time for what?!  You tell her, or I will.”

            “Please don’t,” he said, and it was the second time he’d used that word, a word I’d never heard him say before.  “It will hurt her.”

            “It’s too late for that!” I snapped.  “She is going to find out eventually, and it will only be worse the longer this drags out.”

            “I know that,” he repeated, and there was something in his voice that made my anger start to fade.  “I know that better than you could ever know.  I didn’t want this.  I love your mother, but I made a promise to her that I couldn’t keep.  There’s no taking it back, so I just need a little more time.  I just… before Naruto realizes what a mistake this is… I just want… to pretend to be happy for a little longer…”

            He looked at me stone-faced, and I knew that he was falling apart on the inside.

            I didn’t tell my mom, but I wasn’t happy about it, and the distance between my dad and I seemed to grow impassable.

            Now here we were, meeting in a middle-of-nowhere outpost outside of Tanigakure, and it hurt me to see my father and not be able to be close with him.

            “You don’t have to make things harder, you know,” Boruto said, bringing me back to the present.

            I frowned at him.

            “You both want to have a relationship, so just have one,” he said.

            “The only person that man wants to have a relationship with is your father,” I said irritably.

            “Stop being ridiculous.”

            “Who the hell is being ridiculous?!” I snapped, smacking him in the arm probably a lot harder than necessary.

            Boruto cradled his arm, frowning.  “I just want you both to be happy.”

            “I’m perfectly happy,” I said.  “And he’s with the only person he cares about, without all the excess baggage of his wife and child, so I’m sure he’s perfectly happy, too.”

            “Do you really just not know your dad at all?” he asked with a sigh.

            “No, I don’t, and isn’t that the point?”

            “I’m sorry,” Boruto said, and he meant it.

            “You’re sorrier than he is,” I spat out.  Of course he could be sympathetic to my dad, because my dad treated him like the son he never had.

            Boruto was quiet the rest of the way back to the hotel.

            I found that even more irritating, that he’d learned to control his big mouth, that he’d matured enough to let me be angry without being angry back at me.

            I was very angry.

            Before we went to bed, I noticed that the note the Seventh had scrawled with the name of their inn and their room number was on the nightstand.  I tore it in half and threw it in the trash.

            _Treetop Hill Inn - Room 206_

            It repeated on a loop in my head while I stared up at the ceiling.

            I finally got up and put some clothes on, sneaking out into the night.

            It was obvious which room was theirs because it was carefully shielded, a series of masterful seals that even my eyes couldn’t penetrate.

            I thought about going to the door and knocking.

            I thought about just going back to my own room and going back to bed.

            My dad came outside.

            Neither of us said anything, and we just started walking.

            It was always like this between us, there were never any words to be said.

            “Sarada.”

            I stopped walking and turned around to look back at him.

            He looked composed, but I could tell he was struggling with something.

            “Yes?” I said.

            He looked at me.

            I sighed.  The two of us just couldn’t move forward.  “Where’s your other half, anyway?  I didn’t know he let you out of his sight.”

            “He doesn’t,” he said, nodding towards the inn’s window.

            I couldn’t see or sense anyone watching us, but that was the power of a warding jutsu made by the two strongest ninjas in the world.  “He’s watching us?” I asked.

            “I’m surprised Boruto didn’t follow you.”

            “He knows better,” I said.  I knew he’d woken up when I slipped out of bed, but I’d just whirled my sharingan at him and he’d stayed put.

            “Your Uzumaki is better trained than mine, I see,” my dad said.  He was making a joke.  My dad was making a joke.

            I stared at him.

            “I don’t want this,” he finally said.

            “Don’t want w-what?” I stuttered, angry with myself for faltering, angry with myself for being afraid that he might say, ‘you.’

            “This distance between us,” he explained, and my heart fluttered.  “You’re my only child.  I…”

            I looked away.  My face felt flushed.  What was he saying?

            “I love you.”

            The tears were hot and angry.  “No, you do not.”

            “Sarada.”

            I rubbed my eyes roughly with the back of my hand.  “Don’t try and act like I’ve ever been anything but an inconvenience to you.”

            “Why do you feel that way?” my dad said, frustration creeping into his tone.  “That’s not true, but you’ve already convinced yourself that it’s a fact.”

            “Your actions throughout the last twenty-two years of my life have convinced me that it’s a fact!”

            He didn’t move, just stood there on the sidewalk like he was frozen.

            “Say something!” I yelled.

            “I don’t know what to say!” he yelled back.

            He had the same expression on his face now that he’d had when he begged me not to tell Mom about him and the Seventh, to let him ‘pretend to be happy’ for a little longer.

            It was confusing.  “Just say something.  Say anything,” I whispered.

            “I love you so much,” he said, his voice unsteady.  “I just want you to believe that.  I need you to believe that.”

            “…I’m trying,” I finally conceded.

            He took a deep breath and let it out shakily.  “I’m never going to be a good father to you.  I can’t… I’m not a good person.  But I want to be.  I want to change.  I don’t think I can, but I want to.  For you.  Do you understand?  I don’t know how to make it any clearer.”

            My dad was terrible at talking.

            “Enough, I get it,” I said, finally letting him off the hook.  “You _are_ a terrible father, always have been and always will be.  Let’s just move on.”

            My dad looked at me and there was the smallest upward tick of his lips.

            We nodded at each other, and that was that.

            “I don’t get it, did you work things out?!” Boruto called from the window.

            I stared up at him.

            The Seventh waved from behind him.  “Why don’t you two join us?”

            “When the hell did he get here…?” I muttered.

            “Uzumakis are difficult to train after all,” my dad said, giving me that hint of a smile again.

            I cracked my knuckles.  “Time for some re-training.”

            We went into the inn, and I followed my dad to his room.

            Boruto threw the door open, so I walked past my dad and shoved him.  “I told you to stay at the hotel.”

            “Well, you didn’t really use so many words…”

            “Tch.”

           The Seventh snorted at that.  He’d somehow become less god-like since I found out he was boinking my dad.

            Of course, then his eyes met my dad’s and his entire demeanor changed.  They had a silent conversation with small gestures and looks, something that even my eyes couldn’t read.  He suddenly seemed taller.

            My dad slipped into the corner of the room, leaning against the wall.

            “Since you’re both here-” the Seventh started.

            “It’s late, we should head back,” I put in.

            “But Dad was just about to bust out the good booze,” Boruto protested.

            “Don’t we all have an early morning?”

            “Well, me and Sas’ are gonna have a drink, you two do whatever you like,” the Seventh said, setting a glass bottle on the table.  There were already two cups set out next to an empty bottle, which didn’t surprise me because even if I barely knew my father, the one thing I did know was that he was always at a bar when he was supposed to be home.

            And yet, there was also a map spread out on the table and little notes scribbled in red.  It was suddenly apparent that the two of them were working something, and that maybe the reason my dad had immediately sensed my approach despite the late hour was because he and the Seventh were burning the midnight oil on a mission rather than on their sordid affair.

            Boruto caught my eye.  “There’s been some mysterious disappearances throughout the hidden villages,” he explained, like he already knew all about it.

            My dad placed two more cups on the table and picked up the bottle to pour.  He hesitated over the fourth cup, glancing towards me.

            I sighed and sat down with them.

            We each had a drink.  I was set to be silent, but Boruto and the Seventh started disagreeing over something stupid, and my dad and I cut in at the same moment to set them straight.

            I could see my relationship with Boruto like a mirror in front of me, the Seventh and my dad both looking out at us saying, ‘don’t make the same mistakes we did.’

            I stayed for a second drink, then collected my partner to return to our hotel.

            I went to bed that night knowing that I had forgiven my dad, but I hadn’t forgotten.

            “How long do you think Konohamaru-sensei will be hokage?” I asked into the dark.

            “Hm?” Boruto murmured, rolling over to look at me.  “I dunno, ’til he ages prematurely like my dad?”

            “Ten years?” I asked.  “Fifteen?”

            “Something like that,” he agreed.

            “That seems like it would be enough time,” I decided.

            “Enough time for what?” he asked, rubbing at the sleep in his eyes.

            “To build a life together.”

            “Hm?” Boruto murmured, then sat up suddenly.  “Hey, wait, what?  Are you _proposing_ to me?”

            “Good night,” I said, rolling over so he couldn’t see my smile.

            “Wait, wait, wait, you can’t just go to sleep now!”

            I let the sounds of Boruto’s freak-out lull me to sleep.


End file.
